85 BC Rome
Gauis Julius Caesar looked down at his sandals and noticed that one of the leather bindings had opened. Sighing he bent over and started to tie the tough leather twine together. At that moment, he felt a cold sensation in his back followed by a searing pain in his chest.
As his target slumped to the ground, the assassin inspected his work. The monofilament needle would be undetectable by this time’s medical standards and the poison would be undetectable even 2000 years in the future. As he walked away, the assassin made a single transmission, ‘Target 1 complete, clear for Target 2’.
Half a mile away the other half of the assassination team looked around and quickly reacquired his target. Whilst the elimination of Target 1 was to be covert, Target 2 was to be eliminated in spectacular fashion. From the vantage point of the shaded alley, the assassin waited for his target to pause and the pressed the trigger of his rifle. The explosive round hit the target in the centre of his chest, allowing him just enough time to look down in alarm before being cut in half by the detonation of the round.
‘Target 2 eliminated’.
As the crowd surged forward there were cries of ‘sorcery!’, no-one noticed the brief flash of green from the alley across the square. A few minutes later a senate member who had been close by would be able to identify the body as that of Gauis Julius Caesar, the 16 year old son of the Praetor of the same name.
The assassination team were kept busy as the timeline changed and the city state of Rome foundered and failed. After that there were trips to China, Mongolia and a myriad of other places and times. Eventually, the Celtic Empire, untouched by the chaos around it, became the dominant political and military power on the planet. Soon after, the Celtic Empire was acknowledged as the guardians of humanity and all other nations deferred to them.
This state of affairs continued with the odd interruption until 3014 of the Celtic Calendar (2014 AD). On 29 Elembiv 3014, something truly momentous occurred.
The day started quietly, but at 03:48 an IR astronomy site that was conducting a calibration run suddenly detected a massive thermal signature that was within the solar system. After 2 hrs of checking and the use of several other telescopes it became apparent that there were 2 ships and they were shooting at each other. Judging by the EM signatures of the explosions, the technology was way beyond anything the Celts could field. The Celtic military watched the ships approach Daear with growing trepidation. At 14:24, the duelling ships closed to within 100km of the atmosphere. Suddenly, both ships bucked under the impact of each other’s weapons and the smaller ship disintegrated, its debris causing a truly impressive meteor shower to briefly appear throughout the Western Hemisphere.
The larger ship had not escaped the battle undamaged and appeared to lose control. The ship plunged headlong into the atmosphere. Approximately, 75% of the ship burnt up as it re-entered. The remaining 25%, comprised mostly of the drive section impacted a remote region of the land administered by the Han people. Once the crash site had cooled the wreck would provide Celtic researchers with an insight into a previously undiscovered type of mineral. For reasons that have been lost to history they were christened ‘Trans-Newtonian’.
Over the next 101 years, driven by the fear of extra-terrestrial invasion, the Celts studied the new minerals and developed new technologies based upon them. A major concern for the Celtic government was how the aliens had reached the solar system. FTL travel was still impossible, even with the capabilities of the new minerals. In the absence of any other evidence, the assumption was that the alien ships had travelled the vast gulf between the stars using some kind high speed T-N drive. This view was reinforced by the fact that the ships appeared to be automated, thus removing the need for cryogenic support for their crews. Further credence was given to this theory by the discovery of hyper-speed engines and the measurement of the solar system’s hyper limit. The theory was eminently logical and dead wrong. One of biggest flaws in the theory that was constantly aired (and ignored) revolved around the fact that 2 different alien races both entered the solar system at the same time and then proceeded to engage each other. The odds against two different races sending ships that arrived within the same geological era never mind within, apparently, hours of each other were truly staggering.
Using this theory to underpin their R&D and construction efforts, the Celts developed excellent engine technology and designed ships that were hyper-capable with good maintenance storage. These ships were expected to spend years travelling between the stars before reaching another star system. Warships were limited to fighters and FACs carried by a mothership with commercial hyper-engines.
In 3104, a leading cosmology theorist proved that it was mathematically possible that there may be tunnels through space-time scattered throughout the Universe. This highly involved theory included a proof that fewer than 20 people on the planet could truly understand. As the proof was so complex it was surprising that a graduate student at the University of Ynys Mons understood it well enough to suggest that TN materials might make it possible to build a sensor to detect the ends of these tunnels. Sufficient interest in the media forced the government to a construct a small research vessel. The ship was launched in 3108 and, to just about everyone’s surprise, discovered the first of the 4 jump points within the solar system 5 months later. The discovery of jump points forced the Celtic government to reconsider its planning assumptions. The number one priority was to design and build ships capable of opening the jump points. The first of these ships commissioned in 3114 and the Celts began their exploration of the galaxy in 3115.
